How do we develop a didactic for young children based on modern theories and research? From my point of view this means to discover a playing learning child, which puts certain demands on the teachers and the environment. Children also need very skilled teachers, who can challenge their thinking and help them make sense of the world around them. Teachers who know about the content they are working on, but also how to communicate and interact with children in a meta-dialogical way. On the basis of various empirical research projects as well as theoretical work, I will describe and illustrate with examples from practice how teachers and children learn simultaneously and outline the development of a didactic based on children’s perspectives.

The Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg is a small member state of the European Union, situated between and influenced by France and Germany. With a birth percentage in 2009 of 55% of non Luxemburgish children, the Luxemburgish society is in a change. What are other specific features of Luxembourg? How can ECEC structures be the basis of a relationship between cohesion and diversity? Some principles of the national approach to develop services for young children are the promotion of a child-centred approach and the development of integrated services. The child is an active learner wanting connections with other children and adults. They are situated within a complex network of educative relationships such as family, ECEC structure and school. How can liaisons between school, day care, family and associative life (sports) be constructed? Another starting point of our reflections is the image of a ‘rich’ and competent child. Born with great potential that can be expressed in a hundred languages, this child deserves a meeting place where children and adults can dialogue and share meanings and creativity. What is your view of services for young children?

The Council of Australian Government’s have committed that by 2013 every child will have access to a preschool program in the 12 months prior to full-time schooling, for 15 hours a week, 40 weeks a year, delivered by a qualified early childhood teacher. In Victoria, the Commonwealth Government has committed $210.6 million for implementation and the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development is responsible for leading implementation. The workshop will look at how Victoria is implementing universal access including some examples of where and how kindergarten program hours are increasing to 15 hours in Victoria. Service delivery models, key challenges and implementation strategies will also be presented.

As inclusion of all children into mainstream Early Childhood programs has become the norm, there is a multitude of external therapists and other consultants who are available to support the child’s program within early childhood services. One of the principles of this consultation is that they Embed therapy into the existing program. The traditional clinical approach to children with disabilities involved the child being treated by specialists in clinical settings. This practice severely limited the opportunities the child had to practise the skills they need to develop and cannot guarantee that the child will transfer those skills to everyday settings. Children learn best when provided with multiple opportunities to practice developmentally appropriate and functional skills in real life settings. The key to promoting the acquisition of such skills by children with developmental disabilities lies in what happens to children in the times and settings when the specialist Early Childhood Intervention staff are not there, ie. In the family home and in the early childhood services that the child attends. The older clinical service model is being replaced by a natural learning environments approach, in which specialists seek to identify and utilise natural learning opportunities that occur in the course of children’s everyday home and community routines. (Turnbull and Turnbull, 2003). (Moore, T 2008) What does this look like on the ground, and what are the implications for Early Childhood workers? This paper will attempt to explore the rationale and practice of embedding intervention strategies into routines, and discuss the practical implications for children’s services staff.

I respectfully acknowledge that we are on the traditional lands of the people of the Kulin Nation. Would you like to develop a cultural support plan inclusive of Victorian Aboriginal communities? Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum can assist to provide access and tangible experiences to exhibitions and programs for Early Years Educators. This presentation will offer Educators the opportunity to understand how to develop & deliver contemporary innovative understandings & learnings about Aboriginal knowledge, cultures and histories. Understanding Victorian Aboriginal culture promotes cultural awareness in all children, including greater understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ways of knowing and being.

The Transition Learning and Development Statement provide educators with the opportunity to formally engage families in their children’s learning. Implementing a flexible open approach when engaging families and children in the program, elicits an ethos of supporting families being involved as equal partners in the learning and development of their children. The idea that one size fits all promotes a deficit view of children and neglects the underpinning intention of the Transition Learning and Development Statement. It is critical that educators address the necessity of adopting flexible approaches that explore the cultural experiences of each family and that both teacher and family expectations of learning and development are expressed in the Transition Statement. There will be opportunities to critically think about how our personal values and understanding of cross-cultural communication that may impact on how we engage CALD families in the process of writing transition statements.

By examining and responding to real life scenarios, participants will be able to identify what strategies and processes they can implement when writing the transition statements in the future so as to ensure a flexible engagement of families from CALD backgrounds is practiced.

By reflecting on strategies to build partnerships with CALD families, and identifying how these can be implemented within their services, participants will be able to make the changes needed to further engage these families.

This paper explores through case studies some practical problems and the related legal issues encountered by teachers and child care workers when dealing with the children of parents who have separated (or never married/cohabited).
The types of issues which arise include:
- What do Court orders mean? (language of court orders is examined and discussed)
- Do they bind the school/centre?
- What obligations do they create?
- Should the school/centre have a copy?
- Should staff swear affidavits?
- What obligations are imposed by a subpoena?
- Who is liable to meet fees?

Many early childhood services are already following a health promotion framework without necessarily being fully aware of it. A health promotion framework is evidence-based and includes policy development, the provision of supportive environments, cross-planning and partnerships. It doesn’t just ‘teach’ the message but sets up a culture that fully supports the message. The entire service community needs to be involved and committed. Through the experiences of these three established health promotion programs; Kids — ‘Go for your life’, VicRoads Starting out Safely (SOS) program and SunSmart, this session will provide an overview of the essential elements of a health promotion framework. It will explore what works well, real life challenges and practical, everyday solutions to helping services achieve optimum outcomes. Relevant resources and suggested partnerships will be discussed.

Every leader needs at some time to act as a change agent. We may need to turn a non-performing organisation around, to respond to changes in the environment, or simply to influence a corporate culture to be more positive. Leaders often reflect on the fact that change leadership is one of the most difficult things they do. People seem to resist change fiercely, change doesn’t seem to stick and people slip back into the old ways of doing things. In short, change managers may feel that they need to fight every inch of the way to achieve even what seems to be quite minor change. Recent research has given us clearer insights than ever before as to why people resist change and how change may best be achieved. This will be a highly practical presentation which will focus on assisting you to occasion enduring change.

Over the last 6 years the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development [DEECD] in Victoria, has been pursuing an ambitious reform agenda to ensure continuous improvement in Victorian schools. The Victorian Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat was established in January 2010 to provide state-wide leadership and a focus for effort to sustain improvement in literacy and numeracy, assisting schools initially and broadening to other vital connections to literacy and numeracy education, including the years prior to formal schooling. Dr. Stephen Brown will present his perspective of literacy and numeracy in education along with Judi Hanke who will provide a context for early childhood practitioners.

Using the Linking School and Early Years (LSEY) project as a case study, the workshop will provide a framework for establishing community partnerships that work collectively towards improving outcomes for children. The workshop will also share learnings and practice ideas that have been generated though LSEY.

LSEY is operating in three sites across Victoria, each driven by a local partnership group consisting of early education and care services, schools, child and family community services, local government and state government. The long-term outcome of LSEY is that ‘all children arrive a school ready to engage and be successful’. Recognising that families, schools, early years services and the community play in a central role in supporting children to arrive at school ready to engage. In particular, the project partnership groups are developing and implementing strategies to work towards:
• Creating representative, effective and sustainable local partnerships
• Children and families making a smooth transition between early years services and schools
• Early years services and schools actively connecting with families
• Schools that are responsive to the individual learning needs of all children

The workshop will be interactive and provide opportunities for participants to consider and discuss how the LSEY project leanings may be applied within their own community settings. This workshop will present approaches to developing local partnerships and example strategies that have been effective in supporting children and families to transition smoothly to school, families to become involved in their child’s education and enable schools to build on children’s early learning experiences by being responsive to children’s individual learning needs.

An overview on the signs of autism in infancy will be given based on the findings from retrospective home video and parent report studies, as well as from prospective studies of high risk infant siblings and the few available community-based studies. Although no instrument has proved sufficiently robust to recommend universal screening to date, it will be argued that the problem lies in the use of a one-off screen at a given age. A developmental surveillance approach, where infants are monitored regularly throughout their first two years for the development of early social attention and communication behaviours by primary health care professionals will be recommended. A large community based study in Melbourne using this approach has resulted in an 81% ascertainment rate for Autism Spectrum Disorders, with the remaining children (with one exception) either having a developmental and/or language delay. The need for education on the early signs of autism of primary care professionals will be emphasized, as the value of early identification and intervention cannot be underestimated.

The concept of educators working in partnerships with children and families is a major focus in both the national and Victorian early years frameworks. Participants will explore what partnerships mean, why they matter, why they are challenging, and implications for practice in a variety of early learning settings, including the early years of school. In relation to families, distinctions will be made between genuine partnership and traditional notions of parent involvement and participation. In relation to children, the links between partnership and children’s agency will be discussed. Participants will be encouraged to use their own professional experiences in exploring partnerships.

Working as part of a multi-skilled, multi-disciplinary, high functioning team is an essential aspect of any early childhood professional’s role. It is important that teams have confidence in their leaders’ ability to support, encourage, advocate and challenge as required. Effective leaders work with their teams to create a culture and environment that provides quality experiences for children, staff and families. Opportunities for individual reflection and awareness of group dynamics are an important part of building any team. This workshop/seminar will provide practical ideas about how to build a successful team environment and constructive work culture for staff, children and families, in LCD, Kinder and OSHC services.

Outdoors as the ideal environment to engage children in meaningful activity that promotes development and learning. The early childhood educator is charged with the role of not only ensuring children have the opportunity for quality outdoor play within their centre but that the community understands the value of this play and that families are inspired to include outdoor play as part of the daily activity of their children.

A quality outdoor play space lends itself to the development of complex sociodramatic play and is dependant on the adult to provide the planning, resources, challenge and encouragement to extend on the complexity of the play and to identify and promote the learning outcomes.

This presentation will review the role of the adult in the planning and implementation of quality outdoor programs. It will include ideas for setting environments for play, guidelines for when to intervene and when to leave children alone, lists of play props and strategies for extending the learning of outdoor play scenarios.

Participants will be presented with an overview of a redevelopment of a small country outdoor play space, achieved by families, staff and children, at little cost and which provides a dynamic learning environment for the children of the community.

Using simple everyday resources, you will create inclusive rhythms and rhymes that will energise you and reinvigorate your love for teaching and creating music with children. This interactive workshop will give you confidence to use simple and stimulating strategies to include music in your everyday program for children aged 0 to 8.

The Young Readers Program is built on the well researched premise that early literacy is one of the most important foundations for success in school and life. Children begin learning long before they start school, and it’s never too early to encourage language and literacy development through the joy of reading and the development of a love of books. The Young Readers Program is a 4 year funded State Government initiative (2008-2011) delivered in partnership between the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, the Municipal Association of Victoria and the State Library of Victoria.

The keynote session will provide an introductory overview of how poverty can affect behaviours and outcomes by exploring the impact of economic class. Typical frustrations experienced by educators as a consequence of this issue can include children and parents that laugh when in trouble, engage in conflict with carers, teachers and peers, and who may appear not to be interested in supporting or engaging in learning. The resource base of a family and community, including knowledge of hidden rules of social classes, profoundly influences these dynamics and the more we understand our communities, the more effectively frustrations can be turned into strengths, and challenges into triumphs. The concurrent session will extend these understandings by exploring the role of hidden rules, language registers and resources in more depth. Receive simple, specific and user-friendly strategies and interventions for building powerful partnerships and strengthening your community’s resource base for maximising success.

While both research studies and international policy reviews consistently pinpoint staffing as a key factor in the provision of quality services, systematically assembled data on the early years workforce in Europe has been limited. The keynote session will present the aims, procedures and key findings of a recently completed study of the 27 early childhood education and care systems in the European Union countries. Leading research questions were: What are the qualification requirements for work in early childhood settings? What are the overarching professional profiles for core practitioners? What are current workforce issues and challenges within and across countries? This session will provide more in-depth information about the specific training profiles and workforce issues in four countries with co-ordinated systems of early education/care from 0 to 6 years: Denmark, Germany, Slovenia and Sweden. It will raise questions around the issue of professionalism and ask: in which direction should systems of initial and continuing professional development be moving?

This talk looks seriously at the ABC of early childrearing (attachment, boundaries and consistency) as the roots of effective and non dysfunctional humanity..... and then less seriously at the way ‘weasel words’ are employed in education, more especially by policy makers, academics and journalists, when plain words would often reveal the paucity and low level of thinking and of concepts employed.

When Early Childhood Educators and Maternal and Child Health Nurses work collaboratively everyone benefits. The specialist nature of our knowledge compliments the other and allows us to deliver a holistic service to children and their families. Clinical approaches work hand in hand with an educational perspective offering specific supports when families need them most. Examples of these high level partnerships are increasing but they are not always easy to achieve. The complexities of the different roles can be lost in translation and busy schedules make it hard to meet half way. Despite this there are excellent models that serve to inspire and provoke. This session will draw from practice experience in both early childhood education and maternal and child health and highlight strategies and approaches that have nurtured these exciting relationships. Participants will be challenged to examine partnership possibilities in their local communities and encouraged by great practical strategies that seek tremendous service for children and their families.

The objectives sought by ECEC policy are framed in various ways across the OECD countries, depending on the context at a particular moment. An example often quoted is the sea-change that occurred in the UK in 1998 when family responsibility for young children and peripheral private services for more affluent parents were replaced by a New Labour vision of a national ‘working families’ childcare network which would act as a labour market stimulus, a solution to child poverty and the foundation stage of a more equitable education system. Among the more common rationales put forward by governments to explain their early childhood policies and justify the organisation and financing of services are: • Early education as a preparation for school and/or to strengthen national identity, particularly for ethnic and socially excluded children (the 19th century colonial or nation-building vision); • Early childhood services as social reconstruction (the vision of the October Revolution of 1917: equality of women (low social prestige of motherhood), equal rights for all children, collective public education… leading later to the Soviet vision of inculcation of state values, conformity…); • Early childhood services as ‘closing the gap’, with integrated, targeted services being seen as an anti-poverty strategy (the American, liberal economy vision, within a very unequal society: social containment rather than social solidarity; equal opportunity rather than equal places); • -Early childhood services (and education) in the service of the economy with the aim of having – in the future - a better qualified (than others) workforce; • ‘Childcare’ as a solution to labour market needs (the 1980s economist vision: improved employment/population ratio, bringing female workers (better educated, more compliant, lower wages..) into the labour market; • Early childhood services as a public good and the right of children – both in terms of provision and participation – and framed according to the goals of education as defined in the CRC (more ‘progressive’ and democratic, expects more from government and communities, a more liberal view of education, more child-centred… but costly, poorly evaluated and in opposition to current economic orthodoxy); • Early childhood services as a contribution to business, to a new industry. (funding-to-parents stimulates private business and entrepreneurship but often avoids public investment in infrastructure, the workforce and community services); No doubt, there are other rationales and new ones will emerge. And many systems, because of their histories, include in their current structures several elements of the above. This presentation will review some of the positive and negative aspects of each approach and comment on the typical impacts that more recent policies have on workforce supply and qualifications, integrated working, service quality and outreach to excluded families. The challenges of deciding a dominant policy path for a country or state will be briefly addressed.

The KPV Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S) Champions Project supports OH&S in the children’s services sector. The main aims of the project are to develop a range of resources to meet community managed children’s services needs and increase the sector’s understanding and capacity to develop, implement, monitor and review OHS policies and procedures. The project is funded by WorkSafe Victoria for three years and is to establish good occupational health and safety practices and procedures in the sector, including the identification of major hazards and outlining the responsibilities of employers and rights of employees as well as providing training around safe work practices.

Because parents play a critical role in their children’s wellbeing and development they are essential partners in early childhood education and care services. Early childhood services are also extremely well placed to support parents in the task of raising their children, yet many early childhood professionals feel inadequately prepared and resourced to undertake this kind of role. This workshop will examine some of the issues and challenges associated with effectively engaging and supporting parents in early childhood settings. It will also look at practical ways that services can respond to parental concerns and worries about their children’s development or behaviour.

How do we develop a didactic for young children based on modern theories and research? From my point of view this means to discover a playing learning child, which puts certain demands on the teachers and the environment. Children also need very skilled teachers, who can challenge their thinking and help them make sense of the world around them. Teachers who know about the content they are working on, but also how to communicate and interact with children in a meta-dialogical way. On the basis of various empirical research projects as well as theoretical work, I will describe and illustrate with examples from practice how teachers and children learn simultaneously and outline the development of a didactic based on children’s perspectives.

This session provides an opportunity for a pre-school teacher and primary school teacher to share their transition experiences and for participants to share their experiences of transition. 2009 introduced early childhood workers to the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework as well as Belonging Being and Becoming the National Framework. Through discussion we will share our thoughts on the introduction of the Transition statements and transition practices including feedback from primary school teachers who received the statements. Participants will be encouraged to share their experience and transition programs.

The Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg is a small member state of the European Union, situated between and influenced by France and Germany. With a birth percentage in 2009 of 55% of non Luxemburgish children, the Luxemburgish society is in a change. What are other specific features of Luxembourg? How can ECEC structures be the basis of a relationship between cohesion and diversity? Some principles of the national approach to develop services for young children are the promotion of a child-centred approach and the development of integrated services. The child is an active learner wanting connections with other children and adults. They are situated within a complex network of educative relationships such as family, ECEC structure and school. How can liaisons between school, day care, family and associative life (sports) be constructed? Another starting point of our reflections is the image of a ‘rich’ and competent child. Born with great potential that can be expressed in a hundred languages, this child deserves a meeting place where children and adults can dialogue and share meanings and creativity. What is your view of services for young children?

Conversational reading is important because it can be used with tiny babies, yet contains levels of challenge that are appropriate for older preschool children. This form of reading has been a part of the educational program that produced long-lasting child effects in the Abecedarian studies. Conversational reading is a reciprocal experience composed of alternating adult and child behaviors, like a conversation. Teachers and parents learn that the response of the very young child is likely to be a looking or pointing behavior. The adult learns to accept and value these momentary looks and small actions as the preverbal child’s part of the “conversation.” The adult and child have gone through hundreds of meaningful and fully participatory book reading sessions before the child is expected to contribute words to the conversation. A flexible 3S strategy guides the adult to find a level of response at which each child can successfully respond at the moment. The adult then tries progressively to raise that response, level by level. The levels of child response in conversational reading are see, show, and say.

Altona North and Altona Meadows Child Care Centre introduced sustainability into their program and practices a few years ago. Both centres run with different philosophies and programs. However both have a passion for sustainability. Through support and a partnership between Hobsons Bay City Council, a change was able to occur.

In the beginning, children were asking questions based on issues they were seeing in the media. They saw the effects that it was having on some of the things at the centre, such no grass, no water play etc. In team meetings, teachers began discussing ways we could learn with the children about these topics and incorporate practices into daily routine. The environment team at Hobsons Bay City Council conducted an energy audit that gave further suggestions for improvements. Some where based on infrastructure and some were behavioral changes. These changes saw teachers switching off lights and heaters, having discussions with children and planning in more innovative ways. Parents became involved by participating in these discussions with teachers and children, donating recycled materials for art or programming, or assisting in working bees. Children began planting their own vegetables, recycling water and paper and talking about worldly issues. The partnership between the environment team and the two centres continued to grow. The environment team developed a ‘tool kit’ that would be presented to other early childhood settings in the area, in hope of inspiring them to make the changes within their services.

This is due to be released in November 2009. Once the ‘tool kit’ and training is launched, there is hope that both centres could network with other services within the community and share ideas. Both centre’s are looking towards furthering their environmental practices within the program and daily practices and aim to continue to spread the word.

This presentation will be an interactive workshop that will highlight national and international research focussing on the incidence and impact of Dyslexia / Specific Learning Disability (SLD) on children, families, school communities and the wider community at large. The presentation will also assist participants to recognise key indicators of SLD in children and will provide participants with practical methodologies for managing SLD in the home and school environments.

During the presentation participants will also be introduced to the “More Than Mainstream” project. More Than Mainstream is collaboration between Anglicare Victoria and seven schools in the outer eastern metropolitan of Melbourne, which seeks to “skill up” parents of children impacted by SLD and to engender an “alliance of experts” (parents, teachers etc) to better manage SLD at home and at school.

This presentation will explore the challenges of early childhood education for digital natives and how to make best use of the online resources available to early childhood professionals. The opportunities are here for greater partnerships with children, parents and other professionals by making use of new learning technologies.

Young children today are growing up in a world where digital technologies are already an integral part of their daily lives. The national Early Years Learning Framework recognises that children can ‘use information and communication technologies (ICT) to investigate and problem solve'. There is also a growing body of literature that explores the potential of digital technologies to create innovative, engaging learning opportunities for young children. Digital technologies have the potential to allow teachers and children to become partners in learning, especially in the development of e-portfolios. This kind of documentation allows teacher and child to reflect on the nature of the learning process. We can also learn from our colleagues’ examples on how to involve children and parents via e-portfolios and blogs. Web.2 technologies allow early childhood educators to collaborate in way that was never possible before. The early childhood community on me.edu.au, for example, is a space where people can share ideas and ask advice. There are many opportunities for us all to grow together.

This presentation will be supported by practical examples from teachers’ experiences, videos, blogs and other online resources; as well as the learning gained from a recent Study Week in Reggio Emilia.

Digital technologies don’t take away from the concrete learning and tactile experiences offered in early years settings. They are another tool available to us, and open up new opportunities for collaboration between child, teacher, parent, and other professionals. We can learn from each other, and explore the possibilities one step at a time.

This session is designed for participants wishing practical ideas for daily programs and care giving interaction and also for those wishing to discuss and explore the informants of resonance in language acquisition and engagement.

Target Age Group 3 – 8+yrs
Kinaesthetic literacy learning using word play, finger plays, action rhymes, dramatisation, music and movement. This practical session will focus on activities and strategies that engage children with language and wordplay. Kinaesthetic elements of language wordplay will be interactively workshopped using action rhymes, songs, finger plays, language games, music and movement. Innovative ways to engage children with language and illustrated texts will be explored and there will be opportunity to discuss the features of interaction with language that combine to create resonance.

Children should be exposed to good quality music from many different musical genres whether it is classical, country, children’s music, reggae or world music. Music can be found in your body, in a CD, in your back yard junk and in the air as it blows through the trees in your yard. You don’t have to be a trained musician to know how to do this! Come along and spend an hour exploring dance, song and music activities which you can try out with young children tomorrow.